


Flower Boy

by BaileyB00



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, I'm back!, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, [insert upside down smiley emoji], back at it again with another story about a prince, i love a good prince story, thank you coronavirus, yall writing is my form of escapism so now that im back at home i have to Escape again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:41:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23431855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaileyB00/pseuds/BaileyB00
Summary: The merchant’s son had never before seen a body of water so vast.Tragedy strikes during a young boy's trip to the palace with his father, leaving both of them imprisoned in different ways. The boy is assigned to work in the palace gardens, which just so happen to lie beneath the prince's balcony. The boy grows up hating the royal family, the prince included. But a spark of impulsivity leads to the gardener and the prince spending the night roaming the city, seeing wondrous things neither of them could have imagined possible.Maybe, the gardener thought, just maybe, the prince isn't so bad after all.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Felix
Comments: 14
Kudos: 32





	1. The Merchant's Son

The merchant’s son had never before seen a body of water so vast.

He’d never been to the kingdom’s oceanside capital city, either, so today was a day of firsts. He was traveling with his father, who was making his monthly trip to see the king. The boy had no interest in following in his father’s footsteps; he preferred helping his mother in the garden, but his father was so excited to bring him along that he simply couldn’t say no.

The boy gazed all around him in wonderment, taking in the sights of the city. His father drove the horse pulling the cart filled with supplies where the boy sat. He and his family lived in a small village a full day’s travel away from here. Before he knew it, they were at the gates to the palace. The guards swung open the doors upon the boy’s father informing them who he was. They went inside, where the guards showed them where to put their horse and cart.

“Son, you take that crate,” the boy’s father said, pointing to one of the smaller crates in the cart while he took three slightly ones. Upon lifting the crate, the boy discovered it was much heavier than it looked. He realized he didn’t even know what this trip was for; he knew his father was selling… something to the king, but the crates were covered—he had no idea what his father was selling. “Are you ready?”

The boy nodded, and together, they entered the palace.

They were directed by more guards—the boy thought little of the extensive amount of guards; the king was said to be a neurotic, untrusting man who conducted the palace like a fortress—into the throne room, where the king was already waiting for them. The king sat upon his throne; his advisor, a thin, statue-like woman with hair like straw, stood silently next to him. “Welcome,” the king said in a booming voice. “I trust your trip went well?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, thank you,” the boy’s father said, placing the crates on the floor and bowing. The boy did the same.

“Excellent,” the king replied. “Now, let us see what you have brought me this month.”

The merchant uncovered the first of two crates. “First,” he said, hands shaking and sweat beading on his forehead as he reached inside, “I have brought Your Majesty silver, for crafting fine silverware.”

He pulled it out of his crate—a perfect cube of pure silver. The boy wondered how his father had managed to carry it. The merchant brought it forward and handed it directly to the king, who passed the hunk of metal to his expressionless advisor. She placed the silver on the floor without another word. “Go on,” the king instructed. 

The merchant returned to his stack of crates and opened the second one. “Next, I have brought Your Majesty gold, for the Royal Family’s jewelry.”

In an identical manner to before, the merchant brought the gold forward and gave it to the king, who once again gave it to the advisor. “And the third?” the king asked.

“Bronze,” the merchant said, “for any purpose Your Majesty desires. And there is more. My cart is full.”

“Hmm.” The king stroked his beard. He glanced at his advisor, who whispered something to the king. The boy looked at his father, who was standing as still as a statue next to him.

“Just as I suspected,” the king said suddenly, sounding slightly disappointed. “Why would you lie to me?”

“W-what?” the merchant stammered. “I don’t—”

“You have been deceiving me,” the king said. “This bronze is spelter. The silver, nickel. And the gold, of course, is fool’s gold. Do you take me for a fool?”

“N-no, of course not—”

“Then why the lies?” the king roared. “Your last shipment has been tested! God only knows how long you have been deceiving me!”

“Your Majesty,” the merchant said in a watery voice, “I—”

“You have robbed me,” the king said. “I paid you handsomely for your previous shipments. Now you will return that payment to me.”

The merchant’s eyes widened. The boy’s heart pounded in his chest. His instincts were screaming at him to run. “Your Majesty,” his father said, “I—I don’t have the money.”

“Very well,” the king said. “In that case, you both are guilty.” 

“Both?” the merchant cried as the guards surged forward. Two men grabbed hold of the merchant, who struggled to get to his son. Before he could, two more guards grasped the boy’s arms. He screamed. “My son is only a boy!” the merchant yelled in anguish. “Please, spare him!”

“Quiet!” the king shouted. The merchant fell silent. The boy cried as quietly as he could. His heart pounded, and he felt sure he was going to die.

“The boy is only guilty by association,” the king said. “Therefore, he will suffer a less severe punishment. Life as an indentured servant, perhaps. You, however…” The king glared at the merchant. “It is the dungeons for you.” 

_ “No!” _

“The dungeon master will decide your fate,” the king said listlessly as the guards dragged the merchant away, “whether it be life imprisonment or the gallows.”

The guards exited the throne room with the boy’s father in tow, both of them screaming the entire time. 

“Boy,” the king said, “you will report to the queen. I do not deal with the servants; that is her responsibility. She will assign you to your position. And for God’s sake,” the king added, “stop crying.”

The boy sniffled. The guards released his arms and guided him out of the throne room. They led him down a long corridor and into a different, elegant room, where the queen sat reading a book. 

“What’s this?” she asked. 

“His father’s been arrested,” one of the guards said in a nasally voice. “The king gave him to you as an indentured servant.”

“My,” the queen said, looking sad. “I’ll see what I can do. You may leave,” she said to the guards.

The guards left the room, leaving the boy alone with the queen. 

“My apologies,” she said, looking into the boy’s eyes. “I am truly sorry for my husband’s actions. The king is… a strong-willed man.”

“Am I really never going to be able to leave?” the boy asked, his voice breaking.

“I’m sorry,” the queen said again. “I have no diplomatic authority. If I could, I would grant you your freedom right now.”

The boy began to cry. The queen stood and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll do what I can to make your experience here as pleasant as possible,” she said. “Do you have any special interests? Talents?”

The boy sniffled. “I like gardening,” he said in a small voice. “I help…  _ helped  _ my mother in the garden a lot at home.”

“Ah, perfect,” the queen said. “The gardeners are always looking for extra help. If you would like, I can assign you there.” 

The boy nodded. 

“Excellent.” The queen knelt down and looked the boy in the eyes. “Now, there’s just one more thing. What is your name, child?”

The boy sniffed again. “I’m Felix,” he said. “Lee Felix.”

The queen smiled. “Well then, Lee Felix,” she said, “let me take you to the gardens.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friends.
> 
> You may have noticed that I've deleted my dragon slayer!Felix au,,, I didn't like the way it was going but ! I do have a backup copy that I might edit and republish someday, who knows.
> 
> Anyways, thank you for reading! More to come soon!! What do you think?


	2. Midnight Orchids

“Felix? Hey, Felix!”

The gardener raises his head from the petunias he was planting. “What is it, Chan?” he asks in a tired voice. He stands to face him.

“I just got word from the king,” the other gardener and one of Felix’s few friends says. “He needs three dozen flowers.”

Felix raises his eyebrows. “For what?” he asks. “I didn’t think there was anything coming up.”

“I guess they’re for some dinner party,” Chan says. “He didn’t even specify what kind. ‘Something that shows our loyalty to our allies,’ he said. What do you think?”

“Hmm,” Felix muses. “Dahlias, then, I guess. Does it matter what color?”

“Not really.”

“I’ll get some of the white ones.”

Chan nods, and Felix turns and walks the path toward the other side of the garden, one of the more sunny sections, where the dahlias grow. He knows the king wants roughly half of the dahlias in this portion of the garden, but he starts trimming anyway. There will be more. There always is.

He spends nearly two hours selecting which flowers to trim—the king will accept nothing less than the best of the bunch—and delivers them to Chan. The other gardener has always been here, unlike Felix (Chan’s family has worked for the palace since his father was a boy), but he understands Felix’s pain, especially in regards to the King.

Felix does his best to avoid the king whenever possible.

Felix’s father, the merchant, did not meet his fate at the gallows, but life in the dungeons wasn’t much better. When Felix was twelve years old, he received word from the senior gardener, Chan’s mother, that his father had fallen ill. 

“I’m sorry, Felix,” she’d told him. “The conditions down there—in the dungeons—they’re so poor. He likely won’t receive any medicine.”

Felix didn’t want to believe her. Surely his father would be fine. It couldn’t be that bad down in the dungeons. They couldn’t just… deny someone medicine when they’re sick.

Right?

Felix thought little of it for a time. He went on with his life, tending to the garden alongside the other servants and spending time with Chan.

A week later, Chan’s mother approached him again.

“Felix,” she said one evening after a long day’s work in the garden (the senior gardener had decided to take him in since he was so young and was not allowed—or able—to go home to his own mother). 

He looked toward her with a question in his eyes, and she broke the news to him as gently as she could: late the previous evening, his father had passed away. It was typhoid fever—even if the dungeon guards had wanted to do anything, she said, there was little they could have done to help him. He died weak, alone, and in darkness. 

Felix spoke to no one for nearly a month after that. 

Now, he feels a chill in his bones whenever he has to face the king, or anyone else in the royal family. The queen is at least tolerable; she was kind to Felix, yes, but he didn’t—still doesn’t—understand why the queen did not at least _try_ to help him that day. The prince is almost more insufferable than even the king, probably because of how close in age he is to Felix. In the few interactions he’s had with the prince, Felix could see how arrogant Prince Hwang Hyunjin is. _So like his father,_ Felix thinks, every time he must interact with the prince. It doesn’t help that the garden Felix is assigned to just so happens to be directly below the prince’s balcony. Just the thought of being around the royal family is enough to make Felix shudder.

That won’t be a problem today, however. The gardeners aren’t invited to events such as this. 

The day wears on into early evening. Felix sees carriages carrying guests to the king’s gathering arrive every fifteen minutes. He wonders who they are. Then he remembers he doesn’t care.

Finally the workday is over, yet Felix can still hear music spilling out of the castle. He trudges off to the shack where he lives with Chan’s family, ready to be done for the day. He doesn’t have far to go: the shacks lie on the palace grounds, but away from sight—the indentured servants are the lowest of the low, after all, and are kept out of sight. 

The night is a fairly average one. Felix eats dinner with Chan and his mother (soup—dinner is always soup—made from vegetables in the portion of the garden allotted to them) and afterwards, he gets ready for bed. 

That is, of course, until Chan approaches him and says, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Felix stops in his tracks, already halfway to his bed, and turns to face Chan. “What?”

“We had a deal,” Chan says, “Remember? I took over the azaleas for you last week, and you said you’d take over the midnight orchids for me.”

Felix groans. Chan has a delighted expression on his face. “It’s not that bad, Felix,” he says. “It’s just the exact same thing you’d do during the day… but in the middle of the night!”

“I’m aware,” Felix says, rolling his eyes. Instead of climbing into bed, like he’d wanted, Felix pulls his boots back on, gives Chan the finger, and heads back out into the garden.

It’s evident once he gets back out into the garden that whatever event the king had planned is still going on—a soft yellow light is leaking out of every window, accompanied by music. _It must be more than just a dinner party,_ Felix thinks. 

He finds the midnight orchids directly beneath the prince’s balcony. _Of course_. It makes sense; midnight orchids wilt in the sunlight, and the area underneath the balcony gets very little sunlight, but Felix would like to stay as far away from anything to do with the royal family as possible, thank you very much. He checks his watch—it’s nearly midnight—and gets to work. He fills the watering can and waits, since midnight orchids must be watered at exactly the strike of twelve. 

He waits, gazing at his watch impatiently. He just wants to go back to bed. After what seems like an eternity, the new day arrives, and Felix sets to work watering the midnight orchids. It’s not hard; it’s just a matter of emptying the watering can like he would with any other flower, but the hard part is getting the timing right. If midnight orchids are watered even thirty seconds too late, they won’t glow.

As much as Felix hates being out so late, he does appreciate seeing the midnight orchids at this hour. He’s only seen them after the watering a handful of times, and it’s always a truly magical experience. Almost immediately after he finishes watering the midnight orchids, they begin to glow a beautiful bioluminescent white. The petals glitter in the moonlight. Felix admires his work for a while until he hears movement behind him.

Or rather, above him. He looks up and sees a pair of legs dangling from the balcony twenty feet in the air. The legs reach for one of the columns supporting the balcony, and before Felix knows it, the prince is coming down the column like a fireman. 

Prince Hwang Hyunjin lands on the ground a few feet away with a _thud._ He stands and brushes himself off. He doesn’t seem to notice Felix, who can only stare, mouth agape, at the _prince,_ whom he’s never interacted with in such a way in his life—what is he supposed to say? Is there something he’s supposed to do? His mind is racing. _What the fuck is going on here?_

Finally the prince notices Felix standing there. “Shit,” he mutters. “No one was supposed to see me. I didn’t think anyone would be out here this late.”

Felix doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring, his eyes practically popping out of his skull. 

“I might need some help getting out of here,” the prince says, almost—apologetically? “I’m trying to avoid the guards.”

“I—yeah, okay,” Felix stammers. “I’ll show you.”

He leads the prince to the garden’s back stone wall. He knows the guards never bother with keeping an eye on this section of castle grounds, so he knows the prince will have no trouble. The only reason Felix has never tried it himself is because he knows he’d get jail time if he did get caught. Not like that was a problem for the prince. 

Felix feels a little lightheaded as he gestures at the wall for the prince. “This is your best bet,” Felix tells him. “Um. Your Highness.”

The prince rolls his eyes. “Please,” he says, sounding a little exasperated, “don’t call me that. I’ve had enough of that today. I’m Hyunjin.” 

The prince sticks his hand out to Felix, who shakes it numbly. His skin tingles where it touches the prince’s.

“And you are?”

“Oh. Right. Felix.”

“Well, Felix,” the prince says with a smile, “thanks for your help. I owe you one.”

With that, the prince climbs over the wall and out of the garden, leaving a completely dumbstruck Felix in his wake. Felix returns home and climbs into bed, trying his hardest to fall asleep and just _forget,_ but he can’t. What the hell _was_ that? Why on earth was the prince—the _prince,_ of all people—sneaking out of the castle at midnight? Where was he going? The biggest question Felix has is, _why did he care?_

_I don’t,_ Felix tells himself. _It’s none of my business._

He does his best to put it out of his mind. He’ll have a long day ahead of him if he doesn’t sleep now. Eventually, he drifts off to sleep, dreaming of life outside the garden walls.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to follow me on [tumblr](https://bbaileyb00.tumblr.com/) if u wanna. or don't, no pressure


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